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After a grueling election season, voters have essentially cemented the status quo - Barack Obama in the White House, a Republican-held House and a Senate controlled by a Democratic majority that is not large enough to break a GOP filibuster.

Some of the faces will change in January, but little else.

Last week, with really no post-election break at all, Washington returned to the argument that no one could win in 2011: Does the answer to debt reduction lie in draconian spending cuts paired with lowered tax rates or a more balanced package of revenue increases, spending cuts and entitlement reforms?

The failure to reach a deal on debt reduction in 2011 left us with sequestration - the threat of automatic spending cuts in defense and domestic programs that will amount to $109 billion in 2013 and $1 trillion over the next decade if other, more targeted savings are not passed before Jan. 1.

Most believe some sort of stopgap deal staving off immediate spending reductions and resolving the longstanding dispute over Bush-era tax cuts that expire Dec. 31 will likely be reached before the end of the year. That would pass the thornier questions of debt reduction, entitlement reform and a full rewriting of the tax code on to the next Congress.

Just as in 2011, House leaders vowed last week to protect the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans above all else and continued taking the "Alice in Wonderland" position that lower tax rates will increase revenue by boosting the economy.

Obama promises to decouple the tax cuts on upper-income Americans from those for taxpayers with more average incomes. It's a pledge he's made and broken before, but this time he has the wind of re-election at his back and he should stand his ground.

Luzerne County's only real representative in Congress at this point is Hazleton Republican Lou Barletta. Barletta's 11th District will cover nearly all of the county after redistricting takes hold in January. Matt Cartwright, newly elected last week in the reconfigured 17th District, will represent the Wilkes-Barre and Pittston areas dropped from the 11th.

Barletta, a prominent member of the tea party-beholden freshman class of 2010, made all the predictable noises and votes in his first term, contributing greatly to gridlock in Washington and holding middle-class taxpayers hostage to tax cuts for the wealthy.

Barletta's party leaders in Congress believe their continued hold on the House represents a mandate that matches the president's. But there is a difference between a mandate secured through victory in a national election and one assumed from 234 victories in separate Congressional districts.

During his re-election bid, Barletta made much of his zeal for bipartisanship.

Now is the time to show it.

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